I’ll skip morality talk. Let’s say US asylum of Nazi scientists is at least “problematic” to say the least. By now operation paper clip and the American rush to gather Nazi technology and personnel is well known in pop culture but… rush against what? Yes. The other powers who were taking administrative possession of territory.
The US isn’t the only Nazi safe haven and not the largest. Russia took in nearly double the Nazi scientists the USA did, and the British government took in at least hundreds of not thousands and placed them in government and private firms in the UK.
The US had the most overall success leveraging their use of Nazi scientists based on technical dominance of the 21st century especially in key areas like medicine and flight or space travel, which may be part of why the US gets singled out- both because those successes made history books and added to the global attention on the USA, and also likely because since other countries didn’t do so well in those..
.. areas despite using Nazi scientists, it is easier for people to overlook it or to think about them as not benefiting from it as much. Maybe. Regardless, the 20th and 21st centuries of science, globally, were built in no small part by Nazi scientists secretly employed by various world governments after the war.
And beyond the obvious moral quandaries it gets complicated.
“Former Nazi” scientists like Von Braun worked aside Jewish Americans like Abraham Silverstein at NASA to bring the American space program to fruition. Collaborating. Captured Nazis even worked as double agents- Nazis working for the Soviet Union secretly helped America test drugs and other tactics against the Soviets, nazi scientists in America spied on US programs and reported to the Soviets on American findings. Even in places like China and elsewhere nazi scientists often acted for a third or multiple different governments against the interests of their hosts or sometimes played both sides with each knowing!
I’m not saying any of it is ok or what not- it’s just a mess. An obvious mess.
But it isn’t like most anyone is refusing to use or benefit from the many everyday and lifesaving technologies and discoveries that came from that mess so….
We can condemn all we want but our actions sort of show that maybe we aren’t so high and mighty.
The US isn’t the only Nazi safe haven and not the largest. Russia took in nearly double the Nazi scientists the USA did, and the British government took in at least hundreds of not thousands and placed them in government and private firms in the UK.
The US had the most overall success leveraging their use of Nazi scientists based on technical dominance of the 21st century especially in key areas like medicine and flight or space travel, which may be part of why the US gets singled out- both because those successes made history books and added to the global attention on the USA, and also likely because since other countries didn’t do so well in those..
And beyond the obvious moral quandaries it gets complicated.
I’m not saying any of it is ok or what not- it’s just a mess. An obvious mess.
But it isn’t like most anyone is refusing to use or benefit from the many everyday and lifesaving technologies and discoveries that came from that mess so….
We can condemn all we want but our actions sort of show that maybe we aren’t so high and mighty.